Trump Losing . . . And Losing It
He's not taking his change in fortunes very well.
The replacement of President Biden with Vice President Harris atop the Democratic ticket has radically changed the momentum of the race and undermined the years-long campaign strategy of former President Trump. He’s not taking it well.
Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei take us “Behind the Curtain: Inside Trump’s slump.”
Don’t buy the public bravado. Former President Trump’s advisers are deeply rattled by his meandering, mean and often middling public performances since the failed assassination attempt. They’re pleading with him to adopt a new “hard-hitting” stump speech to define Vice President Harris as liberal and weak, advisers tell us. And praying he’ll stop the recidivistic pull to simply improvise haphazardly.
Why it matters: Trump, who looked and felt like a clear front-runner heading into last month’s Republican convention, has fumed, stewed and stumbled in private and public ever since. Advisers are telling him Harris will grow her lead coming out of the Democratic convention, which begins a week from tomorrow — especially if they don’t define her better, faster. Then just a week after the convention, it’s already Labor Day.
What we’re hearing: Republican sources close to Trump tell us he realizes he needs to bring new focus to a message that can be meandering and self-indulgent. But it’s Trump. So a new script is often fictional wishfulness. Trump “is struggling to get past his anger,” a top Republican source tells us. Trump’s aides know he won’t change. So they’re focusing “not on the need for him to change but on the need to adapt his message to win,” the source said. “But he has to convince himself to leave the other garbage behind.”
“President Trump knows he’s the only one who can end the media’s honeymoon with Kamala Harris,” a top Trump ally tells us, “and he sees a significant opening to do so with Harris’ inability to defend her record on inflation and the border.” “To get past the media force field protecting Harris, however, he knows he needs to be very specific with his policy contrasts and is planning on debuting a hard-hitting stump speech very soon.”
The Atlantic‘s Peter Wehner (“Trump Can’t Deal With Harris’s Success“):
Biden’s abrupt departure deeply unsettled Trump. His entire campaign was built to defeat Biden. Trump survived an assassination attempt, then met a rapturous reception at the Republican National Convention, and concluded that the race was won. And it was, until Biden stepped aside and Harris stepped up.
Trump, enraged and rattled, is reverting to his feral ways. We see it in his preposterous claim that Harris’s crowds, which are both noticeably larger and far more enthusiastic than his own, are AI-generated; in his resentful attacks against the popular Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, and his wife, because Kemp didn’t aid Trump in his effort to overthrow the election; and in his attack on Harris’s racial identity.
At precisely the moment when Trump needs to elevate his performance, to the degree that such a thing is even possible, he’s gone back to his most natural state: erratic, crazed, transgressive, self-indulgent, and enraged. One by-product of this is that Trump has provided no coherent or focused line of attack on Harris. His criticisms are not just vile, but witless. The prospect of not just being beaten, but being beaten by a woman of color, has sent Trump into a frenzy in a way almost nothing else could.
[…]
Something else, and something quite important, has changed. The whole landscape of the campaign has been transformed. The rise of Harris instantly cast Trump in a new light. He formerly seemed more ominous and threatening, which, whatever its political drawbacks, signaled strength; now he seems not just old but low-energy, stale, even pathetic. He has become the political version of Fat Elvis.
Trump is much better equipped psychologically to withstand ferocious criticisms than he is equipped to withstand mockery. Malignant narcissists go to great lengths to hide their fears and display a false or idealized self. Criticism targets the persona. Mockery, by contrast, can tap very deep fears of being exposed as flawed or weak. When the mask is the target, people with Trump’s psychological profile know how to fight back. Mockery, though, can cause them to unravel.
His colleague Brian Stelter continues in the same vein with “Trump’s Latest Falsehood Is a Huge Tell.“
When Donald Trump is at his most vulnerable, when he feels most threatened, he tells fans not to believe their own eyes and ears.
After the January 6 attack on the Capitol, he called the event a “love fest,” denying the video evidence of the violence. After the writer E. Jean Carroll accused him of sexual assault, he said he had “never met” her, despite a photo showing them together.
And yesterday, after Kamala Harris finished a week of arena-size rallies, he claimed that images of her crowds were “fake” and AI-generated. Specifically, Trump embraced a conspiracy theory—touted by pro-Trump social-media accounts known for peddling nonsense—that the Harris campaign had posted a fake crowd photo from her August 7 event in Romulus, Michigan.
“Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport?” he wrote. “There was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST!”
The turnout at Harris events is entirely real, and political analysts suspect that the crowds she has attracted are making Trump jealous and nervous. But the AI lie is about more than Trump’s size anxiety—it portends a dark and desperate chapter in this already distressing presidential-election season.
[…]
Vulnerability seems to be the through line here—whether Trump is at risk of trivial embarrassment, criminal exposure, or being caught in lies. A public figure with truth on their side would say Roll the tape to show they’re right. Trump, instead, says, Don’t believe the tape. Just believe me instead.
While it’s possible that this is all evidence of further cognitive decline, it strikes me as part of a longstanding pattern: Trump throws tantrums when things don’t go his way. His instinct when COVID hit was not that he needed to do everything in his power to prevent catastrophe for the 330 million people for whom he was responsible but rather that it was unfair that it was happening to him.
I see the same thing happening here. He had Joe Biden beaten. He’d spent months telling us that Sleepy Joe was unfit for the job and one debate (and some follow-up interviews) cemented that image in the public mind. His own instinctive defiance in the immediate aftermath of an assassination attempt provided a stark contrast that was likely to last through the election.
Then, suddenly, Biden quit the race and handed the campaign over to a considerably younger, more energetic candidate. That’s just unfair! And Trump is melting down over it.
We’re inside three months to the election. Given how many plot twists there have been, it’s a bit premature to declare this thing over. But Trump seems to have no answers to the new reality he’s faced with.
I’m increasingly convinced the assassination attempt took a toll on him psychologically and has been contributing to his recent lack of campaigning. He’ll never admit it, of course, as even a perfectly normal and understandable human reaction to a traumatic event goes against his desire to present himself as an invincible god king, which itself has always been a coping mechanism for his being a weak, fearful coward. The result is that he’s internalizing it and pretending it isn’t there, which I suspect is contributing to a lack of energy as of late.
It is absolutely too early to call this thing over, particularly when swing state polling is still so close.
As a side note, I read (and now I can’t find it) that one of the reasons the Trump campaign is scheduling some oddball locations is because of unpaid bills from the 2020 campaign.
For someone who claims to support law enforcement, he’s certainly leaving them with some excess costs to cover.
His fear and anger is palpable. I tend to think losing to a woman of color might be the best thing that’s ever happened to him; he needs a full reset.
@Jen:
Super rich Donald Trump doesn’t pay his bills, I’m shocked!
“Rick Wilson”
Long piece, a small taste:
After some introductory remarks about madness of King George III, this:
snip
snip
Continuing with Lots more …
@charontwo:
ETA: I should have emphasized this paragraph, the basic theme and point of the piece:
James, this isn’t really an either-or situation. Those of us who have dealt with someone edging into senility have seen self control and the ability to move on are some of the first things to go. It doesn’t always manifest as anger, but even someone with a lifetime of discipline can gradually fall apart. I think we notice the housekeeping and personal hygiene first, but even a person who never said a bad word about anyone can start blurting out rude and hurtful comments. Imagine what a toxic and malignant personality like Trump’s would devolve into! And inability to move on is also very common. Before people are obviously forgetting things they can become almost obsessive about them. But to me Trump’s biggest tell is his increasing inability to separate things that happened only in his head with reality. The Willy Brown story is being treated as merely a lie by the press, but it has all the earmarks of something that bubbles up when a persons mind is churning with bits and pieces of things they did, things they heard and things they thought about, and can no longer separate which is which.
Looks like the media is being forced to notice that Trump isn’t just a quasi normal guy who is angry and frustrated, but a man who is sinking deeper into his psychosis…the clear mental illness that the media won’t discuss because of the outdated and laughably presumptuous Goldwater Rule. The media ran off Joe Biden when it became apparent his age rendered him unfit for four more years, but won’t do the same with a 78 year old con artist who has been adjudicated both a fraud and a sexual abuser, and whose idea of a campaign speech is disjointed ad libbing that would get a 4th rate comedian banned from open mike night at the comedy club.
@MarkedMan:
One reason this keeps getting normalized as just “Trump being Trump” is the gradualness of the onset with Trump. The decline has accelerated a lot recently, but the early stages were visible 8 or 9 years ago.
His return to Xitter is hurting the price of Truth Social stock. However it’s possible the campaign didn’t give him the password to the Xitter account as the Xitter posts contain full sentences.
@Charley in Cleveland:
Not really psychosis but personality disorders: NPD narcissism and ASPD sociopathy.
He has developed a form of senile dementia that has symptoms similar to NPD and ASPD, so the comorbitities reinforce each other.
This. Not that trump was ever all that tightly wound to begin with, but what little self control he did possess appears to be slipping away.
It’s not just the venues that have turned off the loan spigot.
When Trump’s plane landed in Billings instead of the planned destination because of a mechanical problem, the gas company servicing that airport refused to fill the tanks because Trump has too much outstanding debt.
That’s why he was flying in the charter plane which was last used as the Lolita Express when owned by Epstein.
So… all this written before the Trump / Elon “X” implosion.
Many ketchup bottles have given their lives this day, I am sure.
[H]e knows he needs to be very specific with his policy contrasts and is planning on debuting a hard-hitting stump speech very soon.
So, about 2 weeks?
Seriously though, it looks like (1) he’s rattled by the assassination attempt and realizes that public appearances are creeping into his brain (best to hole up in MAL and do Zoom calls); (2) he’s lost a step so he can’t hold attention the way he used to be able to (c.f. the MAGA faithful who just walk out of his speeches); (3) his thinking is more and more riddled with holes, from some combination of a lifetime of convincing himself he’s brilliant, fortyears of lodged racism and sexism, and a decade of simple mental decline; and (4) he hasn’t changed his schtick since 2016, so his Free Media Moments require ever more bizarre behavior or promises to break through.
So this post is based on two hard core Democrat party media outlets relying on “sources.” Any actual substance?
@joe: BWAhahahahahahahahahaha…. gasp….. wheeze…. 10,000 unemployed comedians and here you are giving it away for free.
@joe: And speaking of actual substance in an absolutely substance free comment is pretty much the height of WATB.
@joe is not Joe, just BTW.
@joe: you didn’t notice the total catastrophe that was the Trump-Elon “interview” last night? (Old man slurs at clouds…)
Oh, and just because they’re saying something that you don’t want to hear, doesn’t mean that a media outlet is a “ hard core Democrat(sic) outlet”
The fact that you left off the ending to “Democratic” shows exactly what you are, by the say.
@joe:
I mean…yes. Right from Trump, in fact. He’s been bleating about Harris’ crowd size being AI generated, which is easily proven false. He latched onto that loon Dinesh D’Souza’s weird-ass conspiracy like a newborn piglet on a teat, ignoring the fact that there were dozens of images from different angles that showed the crowd (and explained the reflection).
He is losing ground. This too is very evident–not just with crowd sizes but multiple polls show it too.
Again, this race is FAR from over. But this overgrown toddler thought he could coast along without doing any more work (a lifelong habit of his), and now he’s big mad that he has to, you know, actually leave his comfy chair and golf cart.
PS–His campaigning would be easier if he paid his overdue bill (lack of payment being another lifelong habit).
I mean, you are people who literally didn’t know that the President was senile until a few weeks ago. You live in a bubble and lack critical thinking skills.
@joe:
We got our senile candidate to step aside. Your turn.
Convicted felon, private citizen, mature adult male, Republican candidate Donald Trump exhibiting his critical thinking skills.
He was slurring his speech in the Elongated Muskrat Story Hour yesterday. I only listened to a few clips, so I can’t really say more than that, but it was weird.
Daffy Duck trying to say the word “states” level weird. “Shltateths”
Has he been indulging in substances? Did he have a stroke? “Shtloke”? Did a bee sting his tongue? Or did old man Donny go commando in his mouth and not put in his dentures?
@joe:
A few weeks ago, and in the midst of an ageist smear campaign against him, the President successfully negotiated a high-stakes multi-country hostage release involving one of its two main geopolitical foes. Proving again that those claiming the President is senile, is an emperor with no clothes, is a Weekend at Bernie’s case, etc., are just liars. Dark Brandon is showing physical signs of aging — but not only is he still fully mentally capable of doing his job, he is literally still in the midst doing it better than any younger man has done it in decades. The results speak for themselves on that score; a country that wasn’t ageist, childish, and stupid would logically conclude we need more octogenarian presidents.
Rapist felon Trump was younger than Biden throughout his whole failed presidency — why did Trump fail to get Paul Whelan home, bring crime down to 50-year lows, or pass the long-awaited infrastructure bill he promised?
@Gustopher:
Given that the two doctors of his that we know about are sketchy as hell, I think it’s a safe assumption that Trump has been creatively medicating for decades.
@Gustopher:
He’s been doing this for years. You won’t read dozens of New York Times think pieces about it. Drama Queen Donnie is unwell, unqualified, and unfit.
@Jen:
A searing indictment of the American people’s weirdness and unseriousness.
NYT is running X interview story with a picture distributed by Trump’s campaign purportedly of Trump doing his side of the interview with his cell phone sitting in front of him on a table, apparently propped up a half inch on a book or a small block, presumably on speaker phone. I have heard some suggestions that his lisping might have been an audio issue on X’s side, but if your go-to audio for a must-impress on-line interview is your iPhone on speaker, your team has failed you deeply.
@joe:
Conservatives live in a bubble and lack critical thinking skills.
A constant feature of conservative policy is that the values are performative and the substance undermines the professed values:
Trump
– claims to be pro life, underfunded post-natal (and pre-natal!) family support;
– claims to be pro “working man”, told Elon how fun it was that he fired union members;
– claims to support the troops, treated their lives like spent casings;
– claims to care about Our Heartland Heritage, enabled rapacious environmental destruction;
…on and on.
@joe:
Hi Joe, welcome to OTB.
I’m curious: what publications would have to run these stories in order for you to accept them? I’m assuming that any website that heavily features Never Trumpers is out (which I get).
What about the National Review, where multiple authors are starting to sound the alarm about Trump’s weaknesses and unpreparedness? For example:
– https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/trump-will-get-his-clock-cleaned-by-kamala-harris-in-the-debate-if-he-doesnt-improve/
– https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/08/the-age-issue-now-haunts-the-trump-campaign/
– https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/mistakes-were-made/
Or are they not conservative enough?
@Joe:
He’s fired every serious operative, and those he didn’t fire either quit or refused to work for him in the first place. Best thing: he fired everyone at the RNC who still possessed a spine and he’s farmed his GOTV effort out to Turning Point USA which as zero experience with GOTV.
@Matt Bernius: I’m pretty sure the average Trumpie considers National Review entirely apostate.
@Gavin:
“claims to be pro life, underfunded post-natal (and pre-natal!) family support”
Also Trump:
did everything in his power to promote the spread of a disease which started under his watch and has killed more than 1 out of every 300 Americans;
routinely threatened to kill political opponents;
opposed all proposals to decrease gun violence.
I am sure the assembled community can add to the list.
@Matt Bernius:
Only The Conservative Tree House, OAN, The Gateway Pundit, and RSBN are legitimate news sources.
I floated this issue a couple days ago:
Venezuela? Um. . . Nope. I used to guess Philippines but they are cozying back up to the US now. Russia? That would be a complicated one for Tsar Vlad the first of his name. Hungary? Is Orban that stupid? Belarus? Serbia? Israel? North Korea? UAE or Qatar? That’d be my guess.
It’s gotta be disheartening to realize if you flee there’s no one who’ll take you in.
Scaramucci says Trump may drop out.
If he does, that’s Bingo!
No one has brought this up yet, any chance TFG drops out by October? I know it’s probably not going to happen but he talked about running away to Venezuela last night. Is that a seed in what’s left of his mind?
@Michael Reynolds: Sorry, I was typing my post while you posted re: Venezuela and dropping out
@Joe: I suspect most of us know that. And the ones who don’t know will be like Jack, working from an alternate universe.
@Michael Reynolds: @Mr. Prosser:
While I’m not going to guess at odds, I will reiterate my previous statement: If he believes he will lose to Harris, he will drop out. Full stop.
@Michael Reynolds:
Since last night I have been thinking that it is not too late for Trump to drop out before the Democratic Convention, it would allow the GOP to reclaim the media’s attention, and Nikki Haley or Marco Rubio could step up.
This may be the only way the GOP gets their guy or gal into the White House.
Trump does not need to flee to anywhere but Mar A Lago, but it is key that he actually steps down, and the election becomes Harris/Walz vs Rubio (or Haley)/Vance not Harris v Trump.
The GOP needs to be seen as actually moving on from Trump, and not still embracing the bitter old man.
@Michael Reynolds:
That’s the rub, isn’t it? Trump wouldn’t graciously step aside no matter what happens in the polls or the press. No amount of pressure could be put on him by influential figures on the right to get him to act in the interests of the party or country. (BTW who could possibly be analogous rightest versions of Nancy Pelosi and George Clooney? Mitch McConnell and Hulk Hogan?)
And if Trump were to lose it completely into a slobbering heap of orange make-up and a long red tie, what would even be possible given their fecklessness and cowardice to date? Pass the baton to JD? Redo their primaries and convention is a couple of months? Recruit Nikki Haley in the hopes the Trumpists will forgive her insulting their god?
Not be a stickler, Matt Bernius, but you meant to say “Hi joe, welcome to OTB”
@inhumans99: I look forward to a Haley/Harris campaign. Who thought we would be guaranteed our first president of South Asian heritage!
@Mikey: As evidenced by the vast majority of the comments on the first article…they are praising Trump’s “directness,” while saying that Kamala has trouble speaking extemporaneously.
The mind boggles…
@MarkedMan:
While I’m not going to guess at odds, I will reiterate my previous statement: If he believes he will lose to Harris, he will drop out. Full stop.
@MarkedMan: To expand upon my comment, although he will drop out if he is certain he will lose regardless of anything else, if he believes a) another Republican could beat Harris and b) that they would issue him a blanket pardon, it would move the needle in the direction of him dropping out sooner.
Again, not a prediction, just an observation.
@inhumans99: I was arguing the reverse of this when people were saying that Biden should drop out and some “other” would be selected…I don’t think this works.
There are multiple ballot deadlines that are coming up, and the Republicans have already had their convention. If Trump steps down, the most direct, legally viable option is for Vance to move to the top spot and name a running mate. It’s entirely possible that Republicans would try to put someone else in the top slot, but my guess is that could be challenged in court in a number of states.
Interesting times.
@inhumans99: I’m not sure that’s possible any more. At least based on all the talk around Biden dropping out, and what that would mean for the campaign, the really important date was the convention / nominating by the party of the presidential candidate. Once that’s done, changing the candidate is legally problematic. And the Republicans have already had their convention, and he’s the candidate.
It would lead to delicious levels of schadenfreude to watch the Republicans suddenly argue that all the laws and so on that they said prevented Biden from dropping out/changing the ballot didn’t matter now for . . . reasons, but then again, shamelessness is their superpower. And it would also be fun to watch a new candidate try to pick up the smoldering remnants of the Republican party, and the RNC. Especially since Trump would still be there. And do you think his ego could handle someone else beating Kamala when he decided he couldn’t?
@Scott F.:
Agree 100%. I couldn’t care less what Scaramucci says and assume he’ll move his mouth in any direction that gets him invited onto a talking heads show. My reason for my statement is 40+ years of observing Trump in action. He is, to no small extent, a quitter. In his early days when NYC real estate people would still get involved with him it was a topic of conversation that Trump would give up early, take whatever few dollars was on the table, and storm away, frequently burning bridges with everyone involved in the process. After every failed business deal, every bankruptcy, he would storm off and sit in silence for a while, before memory-holing the whole thing and eventually jumping back in with some new scam. But his arc is clear: if he believed he was likely to lose, he would try to get out and salvage whatever was still on the table.
Another factor: he is a complete and total racist, truly believing that black people are stupid. That goes double for women and so a black woman is quadruple stupid in his book. As much as you think he would be humiliated to drop out he would be much more so if he lost to a black woman. I’m certain he would rather quit.
@Joe: If it makes you feel any better, I read your name and avatar combo as Joe-Dog, so I would never confuse you two.
@Kevin: This is from CNN
@Michael Reynolds:
He probably tried to say Brazil. You know, all them Mexican countries sound the same.
Venezuela has an absolute dictator with strong support from the army, and that’s where El Felón supported a coup a few years ago. You’d think there are countries that would welcome his money even if not the Felon himself, and venezuela kind of needs every penny it can get. Even so, he’d find himself dead of natural causes two minutes after Maduro either obtained what little money he has, or realized he’s not getting any.
Maybe Xlon can get him a Starship to Mars.
@Joe:
The phone appears to be on a wireless charger/power block, possibly a model “MagGo”… which just an “a” away from MagaGo. And the iPhone audio quality should be fine on speaker at that distance.
@MarkedMan: True, but that still leaves the question of state ballot laws that have provisions about replacements.
IIRC, it’s Wisconsin that has a provision saying that replacement on the ballot can happen after the “death or incapacitation” of a candidate. Dropping out is not “death or incapacitation,” so there’s a question as to whether the state would even be able to put a new name on the ballot (and, if they go ahead and do so despite the wording of the law, the move can and I think would be challenged in court).
@MarkedMan: Gawd I miss the edit button.
What they would likely do in that case is to try and convince voters to vote for the Republican ticket, as people aren’t really voting for Trump anyway, they’re voting for electors.
But, good luck delivering that message to people who don’t pay much attention at all to politics…
If Trump were to flee, er, decide to step aside, there’s the question of what country would accept him, and then the question of who the GOP would run. As per upstream comments, I suspect the easiest path, legally, and in terms of campaign cash, would be JD Vance. But, again, as mentioned upstream, Trump is already the official GOP candidate, so it’s different than Biden bringing Kamala off the bench. I don’t know the party rules, but unless he also flees, I’m guessing they can’t avoid JDV.
Vance would do so badly he might well hand us Texas and Florida. Rubio would do better, so would DeSantis, but I can’t imagine any of those three reptiles stepping aside for another. So, knife fight!
Then there’s the question of what lie Trump would tell to cover for his abandonment of the MAGAts. A conspiracy to kill him presumably? Or maybe he’ll leverage the SCOTUS decision making presidents into kings and claim to have uncovered a plan by Joe Biden to ship him to Guantanamo? On his way out the door he’d call for a violent uprising to re-install him in the Oval. How many culties would actually respond? A few. But we have plenty of prison space.
Fascinating to speculate on.
Supposedly the State of New York has slapped Kennedy on the nose and told him he’s not on the ballot?
@Kathy: Wherever he goes he’ll have to get permission of the court since he is on bond.
Trump apparently told Musk that the assassination attempt made him more of a believer in God than he was before.
If anyone wants a wonderful report of the cluster-eff that was the Musk-Trump lovefest last night, Marina Hyde over at the Guardian has done an excellent job.
Enjoy.
@MarkedMan:
The reason I do not think this is what would happen, is …
… that I don’t think he would pass up another opportunity to legally challenge an electoral loss to Harris as long as he can grift legal expense money from his supporters.
@Scott F.: Jamelle Bouie has a good post at NYT (gift) on What the Republican Party Might Look Like if Trump Loses. Bouie talks about the Whigs in disarray after losing the election of 1844. They blamed election fraud and immigrants illegally voting, but realized they were in trouble. They recovered briefly by running a non-partisan military hero, Zachery Taylor, in ’48, but eventually collapsed.
Bouie points out the Republicans are a “hollow” party,
He concludes,
I’m not entirely sure. If Trump loses again, the Kochtopus and tech bro big donors are going to have to make some change.
@MarkedMan:
If he believes he’ll lose, I expect he’ll try to bargain for a pardon. It would put Biden and Harris in a conundrum. On the one hand, rule of law, bad optics, horrible precedent ala Ford; on the other hand, certainty of Trump going away. (Assuming ironclad terms.)
@Grumpy Realist: So I briefly stopped by redstate.com to check the headlines. It seems they’re under impression that the Harris campaign and unions and the MSM are all in a tizzy over this free media event. I haven’t seen anything of the sort, but haven’t looked for it either.
They also claimed it was record setting, which I suppose it probably was. Biggest online cult gathering ever, or something.
@Gustopher: I will let my dog know. She will be very gratified to hear this.
@Eusebio:
And this is why every podcaster uses an an iPhone on speaker?
@Grumpy Realist: … and ouch! She is witty as hell!
@gVOR10:
There is absolutely zero upside–none, nada, zilch–to Harris promising a pardon. First of all, it would do no good for her politically and probably would do great damage to her due to the millions of voters who want to see Trump brought to justice and would see it as a great betrayal if she willingly shut that down. Second, it’s totally up in the air who would replace Trump, and it might well be someone just as bad, if not worse. Finally, the president can’t touch state charges!
@Kylopod: It’d be fun to have her do something like pardon both Hunter and Ivanka/Don Jr./Eric, but leave Trump himself out of it.
@gVOR10:
I think Bouie has it right.
Sure, the Republican donor class is going to want to make a change. But, where are they going to go for votes? Nobody wants to directly/obviously bow to the rich elites. The Kochopus and the tech bros need the GOP base to keep voting primarily driven by their grievance. Us/Them is how they keep those voters in line, not policy.
Trump’s selling point is “I share your grievances and only I can fix it. I will accept being your king in order to do so.” Both grievance-mongering and openness to authoritarianism are required to hold together what passes for the Republican “coalition” in this historical moment. Trump has the standard bearer for the GOP
If Trump loses, it is true the GOP will have no use for him anymore. But that has been true before and the Republicans didn’t have the stones or the imagination to rid themselves of him when they had their chance. They made their bed in February 2021 and now they’ve got to sleep in it until Trump no longer has use of them. The Republican Party has no means to deny him what he needs and wants and Trump needs and wants to continue to hold sway in the GOP to stay out of jail.
@Gustopher: Other than wondering why someone named their dog “Joe,” I’m in the same boat.
@Scott F.:
I should have edited part of a sentence there before posting…
“Trump has the standard bearer for the GOP” should be “Trump is the standard bearer for the GOP now because he has unique skills in whininess about things being “unfair” to people who should be entitled fairness and shamelessness about his self-serving.”
Scaramucci’s greatest claim to fame is being a guest on an episode of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog’s show, not his political prognostication mouth-flappery.
None can forget this classic Triumph exchange with Ted Cruz from 2016:
Ted: “Just remember, it wasn’t the Republicans, it was the Democrats that took you into the vet to get fixed.”
Triumph: “I support spaying and neutering, just like Trump did to you!”
There is no more “The Republicans” now that Trump blood family has taken over all the Republican party apparatus. Republicans up and down ballot are absolutely stuck with him.. and his innumerable expenses legal and otherwise.
@a country lawyer: Is there any possibility that a court would consider him a flight risk and revoke his bail after he votes based on his Venezuela statement?
@CSK: How much is twice as much as zero?
@just nutha:..How much is twice as much as zero?
Nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’
Imagine openly supporting political show trials/lawfare, and then believing you’re against fascism. LOL.
My military service.
@joe:..political show trial
You mean the show trial where Trump sat in a cage in the courtroom and when he was convicted he was immediately perp walked to jail where he sits today.
I don’t think there are any influential figures left on the right. They are all Never trumpers or trump sycophants.
@Grumpy Realist:
Thanks, that is a hoot.
I’ll go on the record to say that Trump will not quit. He has stated that he knows if he ever stops fighting his followers..nope, strike that, donors will abandon him.
And he’s right.
@CSK: Huh. I took it as proof that god doesn’t give a F.
Hence, it will never happen.
@just nutha: @Mister Bluster:
I love what one ardent MAGA said: “Trump is of a generation that does not reveal these innermost things easily.”
@Michael Reynolds:
I doubt he will flee the country because he is on bond and flight to avoid prosecution would put all his US real estate holdings up for seizure. His lawyers will tell him that if he stays they can extend the legal proceedings against him out until he’s 100 for a few million in legal fees, and whether or not they can actually manage that he’ll believe them.
That said his 767 should be booted, just for giggles.
@dazedandconfused: Just to beat Kathy to it, it’s a 757. Last I heard it’s stuck in Billings. Someone here in an earlier post today said the fuel provider won’t give him credit.
@a country lawyer:
Criminals are not notorious for adhering to laws and rules.
@Grumpy Realist: That was glorious.
Link, for those who may wish for it…
@Matt Bernius:
Don’t you know that The National Review is a commie front run by direct descendents of Chairman Mao?
@Kylopod:
A pardon would be terrible for our country..
I would be entirely supportive of a Truth and Reconciliation Committee, offering immunity for anything publicly testified to, with charges being put on hold and then dismissed. Destroying Trumpism is more important than destroying Trump. I just not sure Trump and Truth can coexist. A lot of the underlings might want to clear their slate though.
It would also require the states to agree to this. I think it would have to be run out of the DOJ rather than Congress to keep the sycophants out of the process. Also, some of those sycophants may be implicated.
“Lock her up!” – chanted Republicans, encouraged by their fearful leader, and it wasn’t even for a crime. *That* is lawfare.
In the meantime, the current Democratic Presidentual candidate *shut down* chants of “lock him up!” Despite convictions for actual crimes.
Please, ladies and gentlemen, compare and contrast.
Well, I’m already irritated with Marina Hyde, regardless of how witty she might be:
Marina, do you realize that SpaceX is run by a woman, Gwynne Shotwell? That there are women astronauts? That there are women in engineering and science? That there are women who would like to go to Mars? I do. I know them. I worked with them. I recognize them. Why don’t you?
Why do you insist on leaning into the “women don’t do science/math” trope? Which is what you are doing. Yeah, and you’re insulting science-oriented men at the same time, but there’s a lot of collateral damage to this kind of rhetoric. You, a woman, are far more influential with other women on the question of “what is a suitable activity for a woman” than any man is.
And yeah, men can really put women off in some situations. I’m not denying that. I’m mad because you are (inadvertently probably) collaborating with those men.
Stop it.
Ok, I like “couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery” and also “the brewery’s head of piss-ups being unable to launch a piss-up in his own brewery”.
So that’s fun.
Meanwhile, my tech brain asks, “could this have been a DDOS, and how would that work?” Yes, I think it could. You just hook up a server farm sending out requests to join the livestream and then dropping the request moments later. A couple of racks of servers, each doing this at maybe 1000 requests per second each. That would likely cause problems – to a site that didn’t expect so much activity.
On whether that was what happened, I have no idea. But it is possible. I mean, maybe all the KPOP stans in the world got together and tried it – I’m not sure that would work, though. But it might.
@Jay L Gischer: I took that to mean that women won’t follow Musk to Mars, not that women are not capable.
@Jay L Gischer: Wow, we really heard something different there. Where you heard “Girls don’t do maths” I heard “No self-respecting woman will voluntarily leave this planet, flawed as it is, to join Elon and the incel losers he attracts on Mars.”
@CSK: WTF??? Boomers pioneered humble bragging. And pseudo confessional memoirs. Yikes!
@dazedandconfused: I don’t think you can seize assets from lienholders without compensating them. Just sayin’…
@just nutha:
Trump is the owner, not the lienholder of his properties.
@Gustopher:
I don’t disagree. But I wonder if a Democratic president would first let trials and sentences play out, and then apply some form of clemency to keep a former president out of prison… commutation, or perhaps a reprieve to at least defer prison time.
@Joe:
Fair enough–it’s not the best setup. But an iPhone mic on speaker phone, or a basic laptop mic for that matter, can provide decent audio but will also pick up extraneous noise if the room isn’t quiet. Would be better to have the type of mic used at the June debate, which picked up Biden’s soft speaking but not Trump’s blathering only 8 feet away. (Actually, for the debate, might be better to use a mic that let’s us hear when the muted-mic candidate is blathering, because that’s what the other candidate is hearing as they’re trying to speak. Or don’t mute mics at all.)
@gVOR10: Nothing in the news about that. Diverted to Billings on a mechanical issue but…
Last track says it’s in Cincinnati
I strongly suspect the tracking on that plane is delayed so it may not be in Cinnci anymore. They can be expected to not post live tracking for security reasons.
@dazedandconfused: I’m not saying he is the lienholder, I’m saying he has lienholders. On almost everything, I would guess.
@just nutha:
Well, Trump is very reserved and self-effacing, you know.
@Franklin: Even the psychopathic James Comey didn’t have the guts to deny she broke the law. He just arbitrarily rewrote the law to say she had no “intent.”
I think the “Harris cannot be black because she is also Indian” diatribe was unscripted full-on Trump id. He cannot conceive biracial folks as a concept. To the NABJ audience. No campaign consultant would okay that assertion. He was off-script and his genuine self.
He thinks racial identity is exclusionary. If you are one, you cannot be another. Three year olds get that concept.
@just nutha: Sorry, I should’ve put that as “Property can be seized that has liens on it.”
@CSK: No. I’ve missed that quality in him. But I admit to having some level of animus toward him.
@dazedandconfused: Thanks. I didn’t know that. My understanding was that lienholder have some protection, but it’s been a long time since I needed to care.
@just nutha:
The liens remain on, just become the next owner’s problem. About the only rights a bail-jumper has are a fair trial and free speech, but a lawyer might bet to differ a bit.
@joe:
There is no ‘Democrat Party’ in America, there is however a Democratic Party.
@dazedandconfused:
Actually that’s the Weathervane’s charter plane. The Felon’s jet, if you follow this link, was last recorded at Palm Beach on August 11. Prior to that it was at Billings.
@al Ameda: I don’t know what the antecedent was to your comment but I will bet dollars to nickles it was in response to someone who has never mentally nor emotionally matured past 13 years of age.
@Roger: Of course that’s what you heard. That’s what you were supposed to hear.
AND, it has unintended consequences. Which I tried to highlight.
To respond to the thesis: there are people interested in colonizing Mars that aren’t Elon Musk or incels or even male. Frankly, this is way too adjacent to sexually slurring every man in tech or who is interested in space.
And it appears, given how many children by different women Elon has, that there is a cadre of women who don’t necessarily agree with the assessment, either.